Introduction The globalizing and integrating forces of technology, ecology, economics and pop culture ("McWorld") have spawned a disintegrable, anti-modernizing fundamentalist reaction ("Jihad") that puts aggressive, commercializing secularism on a crash course with the billions of people who feel marginalized by the global economy and threatened by homogenizing consumerism and its materialist values. While fundamentalist reaction is no ally of democracy, the forces of McWorld have shown little interest in it either, and democracy is likely to be the real casualty of the struggle between Jihad and McWorld unless its concerns with pluralism, participation, empowerment and democratic liberty become central to those who oppose Jihad.

For Debate:
Why do Americans have such a hard time understanding why "they (foreigners, terrorist sympathizers, the world) hate us so much"? Innocence? Callousness? Ignorance of the world? Hubris? Is there a relationship between the global market and its studied anarchy and terrorism, which also seems to benefit from anarchy? Is the antiglobalization movement a cousin of the terrorist movement (as right wing critics have asserted) or part of the attempt to alter the world in ways that check terrorism?

If terrorism is related to global inequalities and economic injustice, why are so many terrorists other than poor and impoverished, and why does the terrorist litany focus on other issues? Is there, as Sam Huntington and Andrew Sullivan and others have insisted, a "clash of civilizations" at play today -- the "West against the rest" or "Islam against modernity and democracy"?

Is, for example, Islam "incompatible with democracy" as some have argued?

Is fundamentalism extremism the exclusive property of Islam? Is there a relationship between America's stubborn unilateralism in foreign policy and its insistence on absolute sovereignty in all affairs and its vulnerability to terrorism? Or is absolute Sovereignty the best guarantee against terrorism?

Panelists:
Raghida Dergham is Senior Diplomatic Correspondent for London-based Al-Hayat, the leading independent Arabic daily newspaper. She writes a regular weekly column on international affairs and contributes frequent editorials. Prior to joining Al-Hayat in 1989, she was Chief U.S. Correspondent for Al Hawadeth, a weekly magazine, for eight years.
Her diplomatic reporting has included covering the Gulf War, summits between former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. presidents, and interviews with more than 50 world leaders. One of a few women commentators on international politics, Dergham appears regularly on MSNBC and CNN. She is also a frequent guest on PBS's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and The Charlie Rose Show, and has written Opinion pieces for The New Yorker.

Stephen Jukes is the head of Reuters worldwide news operations. He is based in Washington, DC and is responsible for textual news, pictures and television. He is one of two deputies to the Editor in Chief, Gerrt Linnebank, who is based in London. From 1996 to 2000 he was the Editor and Executive Vice President in charge of news operations in North and South America, overseeing coverage of stories which ranged from the Atlantic Olympics to the Clinton-Lewinsky saga. Before that he served as Editor for the Middle East and Africa, based in Nicosia.
In this role he coordinated coverage of major stories, including the assassination in Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. Mr. Jukes joined Reuters in 1979 as a financial reporter in London. During the following years he held a succession of reporting and editorial positions in Europe and Middle East covering the Iran-Iraq war, key international finance summits, the fall of the Berlin Wall and major international governmental crises. In 1990, he was appointed News Editor for the UK and Ireland, with responsibility for all text and news pictures coverage in those areas. Mr. Jukes has a degree in modern languages from Hertford College, Oxford.

Ambassador Edward S. Walker Jr. became President and CEO of the Middle East Institute (MEI) on May 14, 2001. Since assuming the position, Mr. Walker has consistently urged for restraint on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, advocated for a return to peace negotiations, and built upon MEI's relations with various academic and business organizations in the region. In the aftermath of September 11, Mr. Walker was invited to write what is now a bimonthly column, "Letters from Washington", in Al Hayat, the most widely read Arabic language daily newspaper in the Middle East. Prior to assuming his position with MEI, Mr. Walker was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
A career Foreign Service Officer for nearly 35 years, Mr. Walker also served as the Ambassador to Israel from 1997 to 1999, and as Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt from 1994 to 1997. In addition, he has served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations with Ambassadorial Rank from 1993 to 1994, and as Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 1989 through the period of the Gulf War to 1992. He was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh.
During his tours of duty in Washington, DC, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State, and as Special Assistant to the President's Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Negotiations (1979-1981). Mr. Walker joined the Foreign Service in 1967. Mr. Walker was born in Abington, Pennsylvania. He received a B.A. at Hamilton College and a M.A. degree at Boston University.

Moderator:
Benjamin R. Barber is the Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland and a principal of the Democracy Collaborative, with offices in New York ,Washington and the University of Maryland. Dr. Barber brings an abiding concern for democracy and citizenship to issues of politics, culture and education in America and abroad. He consults regularly with political and civic leaders in the United States and Europe, including former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator Bill Bradley, and President Roman Herzog of Germany; as well as with institutions such as the Corporation for National Service, the United States Information Agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities; and in Europe, UNESCO, the European Parliament, the Swedish Parliamentary Commission on Democracy and "Mission 2000" (the French Millennial Commission). Some of Dr. Barber's books include the classic Strong Democracy (1984) , the novel Marriage Voices (1981) and the recent international best-seller Jihad vs. McWorld (1995, translated into ten languages). His collected American essays, A Passion For Democracy, were published by Princeton University Press in 1999, and his new book: The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House

Suggested Reading:
Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (Times Books). Chapters 10, 11, and 14.

Thomas L. Friedman, "In Pakistan, It's Jihad 101," The New York Times, Nov.13, 2001.

Paul E. Steiger, "Covering a Struggle Against Evil," Wall Street Journal, Nov. 27, 2001.

Lee Walczak, Stan Crock and Frederik Balfour, "Winning the Peace," BusinessWeek, Dec. 3, 2001.